% The UK should not do a trade deal with the US, for these reasons
% Leah Rowe
% 2019-03-01

Firstly, food standards:
<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/01/us-seeks-greater-access-to-uk-food-markets-after-brexit-trade-deal>

We should be encouraging development of sustainable food production... basically
this means abolition of meat. Teach everyone to be vegan.

(I wrote in an article before this one that I'm no longer vegan... but that's
no longer true. I went back to being vegan. Before you accuse me of being a
hypocrite)

The US Trade Department (is that what it's called?) published the following recently:
<https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Summary_of_U.S.-UK_Negotiating_Objectives.pdf>

This is a summary of the US's negotiating positions. In other words, a laundry list
of everything the US wants (and will probably get, because we have a right-wing 
government in the UK that is itching to do a deal with Trump).

Here are some key excerpts from that document (quoted here under *Fair Use*)
which illustrate my point:

<h2>Free Software is in danger</h2>

See page 6, under *Digital Trade in Goods and Services and Cross-Border Data
Flows*:

It says the following:
*Establish rules to prevent governments from mandating the disclosure of computer
source code or algorithms*

In English? This means that universal copyleft becomes impossible. As free
software activists, we must ensure, by force, that all software is free. It is
no good to simply offer the choice. Imposition of proprietary software upon an
ignorant public is tantamount to exploitation. A well-informed, educated public
would never accept it.

We should be fighting for the development, marketing and sale (or provision) of
proprietary software to be *illegal*.

The *Intellectual Property* section in that document demands the UK to allow
greater access to UK legal systems by US media companies. These are the same
companies lobbying and paying for corrupt, draconion Copyright laws in the US.




I mean, come the fuck on. I could go on with this but... aren't we meant to be
leaving the EU? I believe in leaving the EU. The EU is wholly undemocratic and
toxic to socialist policies... the US is just as bad.

I do not want the UK to become the US's 51st state.
